To Be A Black
by Penultimate
Summary: Vivian Aludra Black, known at Hogwarts as 'Vivian Cullum,' has made it her goal to escape her shameful pureblooded ancestory. But when Sirius Black escapes from Azkaban, she begins to question everything about her history, her family, and herself.


**A/N: A story that I started a year ago and never finished has now been revamped and restored to be a wonderful little fanfic. Just an introduction chapter, so not much interesting goes on here. May I ask for at least 2 reviews for the next chapter to be posted? There is a banner for this story, the link to which can be found on my profile. Thanks for reading!**

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**Disclaimer: If you recognize it, then it isn't mine. End.**

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Her name was Vivian Aludra Black. Yet, her story was a mystery... even to herself. It was the summer of 1993. A small uprising of janitorial goblins had been ended at Gringotts, the Weird Sisters' newest album, 'Macbeth,' had been number one on the 'Wizarding Wireless Network's Music Charts' for two months now, and Sirius Black had recently escaped from Azkaban Prison. Aside from the escape of a murderous raving lunatic from what was supposed to be the most guarded prison in all of the world, everything was pretty much normal in the wizarding world. 

Vivian, in truth, was not concerned with any of these happenings. She was spending her days living with yet _another_ pureblood family. As a matter of fact, she had spent the last few Holidays in the company of the modest and sincere Malfoys. What a lovely bunch they were. Honestly, she had no reason to live with them save for the fact that, from what she'd derived from Narcissa's tellings, Narcissa was her second cousin. Of course, she couldn't be sure... the pureblood families had become so scattered anymore and, though she had seen the noble tapestry that mapped out her ancestors and relatives, she was never sure of the exact relations.

A pureblood through and through, that's what Vivian was. Or at least, that's what she led her relatives to believe. Her father had been none other than Regulus Black, the noble warrior who had died fighting for the worthiest of causes: the purification of the world. Her mother had been Mira Lestrange, younger sister to Rudolphus Lestrange. Vivian had been born only days after her father's death, and despite the fact that he was a deserter to 'the cause,' he was still revered as a hero. Months after being born, Vivian's mother mysteriously disappeared. From what Vivian had been told, she'd simply lost her mind and vanished. For several years she was raised by her grandmother, Walburga, but after her death she was passed around from one family to another. Finally, after being passed through three families in one year, it was silently absolved that she would be living with the Malfoys. After all, weren't they doing quite well for themselves, and hadn't they done so well with their young son...oh, what was his name? (Began with a 'D' didn't it? Something with a 'D-r-a'...) Draco! (That's the word.) Hadn't they done so well with young Draco? Hadn't he become such a fine, upstanding pureblood?

So the Malfoys took Vivian in, raising her the best they knew how. And to their knowledge she had turned out to be as pleasant as dear Draco. They had taught her to be everything that a proper pureblood _should_ be, but little did they know that she had actually 're-programed' herself, so to speak. When Vivian was around family of the noblest kind, she acted as they expected her too. However, despite her perfect attitude towards them, everyone's looked toward Vivian changed after her first day of Hogwarts.

It had a little something to do with being sorted into Gryffindor.

At Hogwarts she acted just as all the other students did, and was the truest of Gryffindors. She had a tendency to run around with the Weasley twins, despite the fact that they were about two years older than she. But she was also known to be seen with all the Weasleys, including Ginny and Ron, which meant she was also seen with Hermione Granger and Harry Potter. And even so, there were the off days when she would be walking the shore of the lake with Draco, wincing into the sun and talking offhandedly as though this was normal, because it was.

Vivian knew that if she went by her surname, 'Black,' she would never hear the end of it. So, days before the school year began, she placed a formal request with Professor Dumbledore by way of letter asking that her name be listed, not as Black, but as Cullum. She never received an answer, but when she was called to be sorted as "Cullum, Vivian" and Dumbledore had looked at her with that twinkling stare, she knew that he had obliged her request. She never mentioned her being pureblood to any of her friends, and it went completely unnoticed. Draco had recently taken to teasing her about looking like Black, but she just ignored him. Oddly enough, Draco never told anyone about Vivian's living with his family or her being a pureblood. He never used it as blackmail – no pun intended – and he never teased her about it (at least not while they were at school). It was one of the reasons that she put up with all of Draco's crap during the Holidays.

But over night, everything changed. In one night, it was all different. In one night, the impossible became possible, and the entire world was upside down.

Vivian found out two different ways: through the _Daily Prophet _on her breakfast plate, and the blond sitting beside her.

When 8:00 a.m. came on this particular steamy June day, Vivian sat down in her seat at the Malfoy table, as though it were no different. Draco was already sitting at his seat beside her, which was quite abnormal seeing as how Draco normally took to sleeping in on summer days. Neither Lucius nor Narcissa were anywhere to be seen. This was hardly unusual for Lucius, but for Narcissa's seat to be vacant was something else entirely. She was normally there to nod her head and agree with every word that Draco had to say. But not today...

Shrugging these abnormalities aside, Vivian picked the _Daily Prophet_ up off of her plate, her eyes running over the image of a crazed man fighting against Ministry of Magic officials while holding some type of prison card. She didn't recognize him at first, but was a bit stunned at the fact that – if she looked very close – it was almost like looking into a mirror. The headline above the picture read: "Escape from Azkaban!" Yes, the title stunned her slightly, but it was not what surprised her the most. It was the two words scattered all over the page, "Sirius" and "Black." She knew those words, and she knew them well.

Why wouldn't she? It was the name of her uncle.

"Well, would you look at that? Black's flown the cuckoo's nest..."

"Shut up, Draco," Vivian breathed, eyes having widened slightly ever since she first saw the paper. "It isn't funny."

"Well of course it isn't!" Draco turned to face her, resting his arm on the table and leaning his head onto his hand. "Black is an insane murderer, who is now out wandering the streets. D'you think I find that funny?"

"Yes."

"It seems you know me pretty well, Viv." The blond gave one of those smirks that would've been a grin if worn by anyone else, but because it was fashioned by this cold, snotty little snake it was warped and distorted into a simpering sneer.

"Yeah, I know, that's what scares me..." It was then that she fell silent. The silence would remain for the next half hour, for Vivian would spend that entire thirty minutes studying the story about Black's escape, as well as the related stories about security concerns at Azkaban, Ministry of Magic protection suggestions, Dementor precautions, and so on and so forth. She never left her chair, and never touched any food. All she did was sit quietly and read.

Common sense told her that all kinds of different shit was about to hit the fan. And for a moment she thought 'I wonder if Harry knows?' Did he know that Sirius had escaped? Better yet, did he even know the relevance or connection between himself and Sirius Black? After all, if it hadn't been for her Grandmother Walburga she never would've known about the real connection between Black and Harry.

Somewhere between the fiftieth and fifty-first rant about how horrible the world had been to her and how awful life was in general, Vivian had managed to get her to stop for a moment and talk about Regulus and Mira. (She still wasn't sure _exactly _how all of that had come about, but she could vaguely remember it involving a dead rose and some sort of shiny thing...) And somewhere in that little conversation Walburga had gone into an entirely separate rant about how her oldest, most promising son had become a blood traitor and, despite his betrayal of his friends for the sake of the Dark Lord, still would never be worthy of her love and affection. Of course, after Walburga had let slip that morsel of information Vivian had ordered Kreacher to tell her about what had really happened with Sirius.

Dealing with Kreacher was like dealing with four different people at once. There was the obedient servant who did as he was told; the loyal follower who's stories were always one-sided and glorifying to his true master, but completely biased making it hard to believe much of what he said; the horribly prejudicial creature that loved mumbling little odds and ends about mudbloods, half-breeds, and what not; and finally there was the crazy little psycho who was always muttering things about moth-eaten shirts and overturned buckets (it was a side rarely seen, but a side nonetheless to the psychotic little House Elf). Seeing as how it had been practically impossible to get information out of Walburga, you can only imagine how hard it was to get word about Sirius from Kreacher, who lived to be his masters clone. It had taken hours, but there had been nothing to do on that particular day except for watch the Doxies fly around in the curtains, so she had devoted all of her time to interrogating Kreacher. In the end, despite the effort it had taken, Vivian had ended up with a clear cut story of exactly what had happened.

And it made absolutely no sense whatsoever.

How could someone who had good friends and their whole life ahead of them, someone who had never looked twice at the dark arts and spent his whole life trying to put distance between himself and his dark family, betray their closest friends in such a way? The real question, though, wasn't _how_ could someone do such a thing. Rather it was _why _would someone do such thing? There was always the possibility that his whole life had been one undercover mission, but that made no sense either because _surely_ Kreacher would've known about that and commented on it. So it simply wasn't an option... There was absolutely no sense, no logic to any of it!

Of course everyone said he was a 'murderous, raving lunatic'...

But she still didn't believe it. And as she sat staring at the newspaper, watching the man struggle against the Ministry workers and scream at the camera, she still couldn't believe it. And wouldn't believe it.

So over night, everything changed. In one night, it was all different. In one single, solitary night, the impossible became possible, and the entire world was upside down.

And the morning after, Vivian silently resolved to figure out the truth.


End file.
